The Fury of Her Laugh
by Notforyousir
Summary: Alma is on a mad hunt for her sister when she finds herself driven deep in the woods of the south, on the complete opposite side of the country than where she needs to be. She is lost not in her surroundings, nor in the evident zombie apocalypse unfolding around her, but in her own mind. That is, until she finds Daryl. Daryl/OC M for smut, language, violence, and so on.
1. 1- Meet Emily

**Sup ya'll. So seeing as I'm actually writing stuff, and I have a steady flow of creativity, some comments, some follows, would be verr' much appreciated :D This is my first REAL attempt at fanfic, and I'm pregaming for the new season. Bear with my attempts at humor. :D I plan to make this a very awkward relationship. Norman Reedus himself said that if his character was going to have romance, he wanted it to be really awkward. Well awkward it shall be. Now read! Comment! **

Before the outbreak, Alma was exactly what one would call a couch potato. Sitting for hours a day on her computer, she was glued to her Netflix account and Pornhub. A task by day, duty by night. She still kept herself in decent shape though, or so she told herself. Whether it was through sex or occasionally hitting (and losing to) the gym, she kept herself from the deep depths of obesity. But that didn't excuse the thin layer of chub over her 5'1 frame. She always tried to convince herself that it would be easy to melt off those few pounds and show the muscle beneath, but she knew she never would.

All her life she joked that a good apocalypse would make her nice and skinny, and wipe out America's obesity problem. Decrease the surplus population, and knock out a lot of people she always kinda wanted to see zombified.

She then thought quietly to herself, _Be careful what you wish for, McFatty. _She knew she couldn't run for shit, her endurance was a bitch, and she had pigeon feet. Her fat, round ass was like a dumb-bell pulling her gradually closer to the fiery pits of hell where she probably belonged. At least she has painless tits. A manageable B. At least she wouldn't be giving herself black eyes when she ran.  
When the zombies struck, she immediately began cursing zombie movie makers, yet thanking them so much. She thought secretly that they were part of some conspiracy pact to test all their fictional (now non-fictional) zombie theories. She truly believed for a solid 30 minutes when the dead began silently shambling down her street that it was all those motherfuckers'damn fuckin' faults. However, she thanked then infinitely for the knowledge gained- nail the suckers in the brain, don't get surrounded, don't let one within 10 feet of you without killing it, and don't you dare fucking make noise. Those fuckers can hear the fat on your body sloshing around, no less your wheezes as you try to roll yourself over the edge of that fence.

When it happened, she was at her parent's old house, an inheritance after they (luckily) died of old age in the comfort of the home in which they raised their three children. A small place, built too long ago on shifty rooms were filled to the brim with swollen and sore memories of a time much simpler than this. She remembered, as the dead walked past her house in small herds, oblivious to her presence within, that her siblings might still be kicking and screaming in the world beyond.

Alma's brother was god knows where with god knows who, so she chose not to worry about him. Like her, he knew how to laugh at the bad things in life, and it was laughter that kept the survivors surviving. Something within her told that Charles was fine and kicking more rotten ass than she ever would. Maybe in all the havoc, he'd find some man as gay as he was to love. The thought made her smile.

However she could shake her worry for her dearest sister, Emily. From day one, Emily was her partner-in-crime. A tyrant and a friend. A shoulder she knew would never slouch if it was supporting Alma's head. A heart in which to bury one's own, and a mind so quick, so sincere, that it broke you down into humble, inferior tidbits. You gladly let it. However, Emily was not a girl keen to fairy tales, like the one unfolding like a shadow over the earth. Her sister would be holed up in some mansion, up in the ritzy half of New York where she designed famous buildings, denying that anything was wrong. She'd curse private school, and God, and her boss, and maybe our mother, but she'd never stop to think maybe it was real. For once, her math problems couldn't solve the issues at hand, and Alma knew innately that her sister was NOT okay.

She had to reach Emily.

She knew from the moment the emergency broadcast was aired that her only place was at her sister's side as it had been for years. New York was quite the trek from Houston, Texas, but goddamn Alma wasn't a quitter when it came to those she loved most. She would easily give her life, her health, her laughter, her sanity, to save those she held most dear. _A martyr, _she joked. _A fat, sarcastic Jesus who's too damn selfish to die for some fucker's sins, but self-loathing enough to put her desires aside to elevate another's. That was what a martyr was anyways. A suicidal mascochist/people pleaser. _She truly hated every second of that existence, but Emily needed her. And like a martyr, she faced the dead with no intention of dying, simply so that she might live to save another, and eventually die to give life to someone who is more deserving.

When Alma left, those thoughts in place, she knew she wouldn't be coming back.


	2. 2- Ain't That A Bitch

**Skip a few months, amount uncertain, to the silent Georgian woods.**

Alma woke with a start from where she slumbered in a tree. The plane she had cleared in the center was shaded enough that for a few moments she wasn't sure if it was still night, or if her eyesight was starting to deteriorate again. She softly cursed and pushed herself up from the sleeping back, groggily wondering why she woke so suddenly. She then heard it again, a sound. _Hooves. _They weren't the quick and soft hooves of a few stray deer, but the frantic and heavy pulses of a horse, cantering through the trees. She began to accustom herself to the light streaming in through the leaves, began to focus onto her surroundings and peered over the edge of the plane to see what was going on below her safe perch. To the east she saw the rear of a brown horse disappearing into the trees. Nearby she heard the guttural whispering of the ravine. Not far she could her tender moaning from the walkers. But a horse? A freakin' horse running wanton throughout the trees like some spirit? She blinked and huffed a sigh. _The fuck was in that soup I made? Maybe that wasn't really some type of herb I found in that garden…._ But Alma didn't feel the typical slowness or hype of a high. Nor did she begin hallucinating wildly. She had only seen a horse. After all, there was a farm nearby…

She heard a splash.

From down in the ravine it sounded, igniting her cat-like curiosity. Was it the rider of the phantom horse? Some injured fowl drowning pathetically? A reanimated corpse going for a pleasant swim? She heard what sounded like groans so she assumed it was a walker and so she turned her eyes back to her nest.

The red sleeping bag looked furious, all rumpled up beneath her body. _Too heavy, _it gasped_. _Alma knew good goddamn well that she had lost her tubbiness just like she predicted would happen in the case of an apocalypse. She kicked the fabric off of her and stretched, naked, in the afternoon light. She was haunted by how constant the sun was. It reminded her daily that she needed to remember something, needed to move on, needed to keep searching but for who….

For Emily?

Alma let out a peal of laughter.

"You've gotta do better than that, Alma. Emily's dead and you wouldn't even get close to New York without freezing your pale behind or having it eaten off. Either way, that girl is **dead.**"

This no longer saddened Alma. Just as she had done in her 24 years of life, she'd learned laughter was the only way life could be managed. Bullshit was still bullshit, but it really made a difference if you could flush afterwards instead of letting it build up. So here she was, laughing over the death of the only person Alma still **breathed** for. Nestled in the safety of her elevation, she giggled over just about everything she could. When she saw the stack of cash still littering the bottom of her backpack, she laughed. When she saw the stain of blood where she had ravenously eaten a few mice she caught, she laughed. When she considered that maybe being a zombie wouldn't be so bad after all, she laughed. Ironically, a lone walker beneath the tree's boughs hissed as it heard her but could not see. It loitered there, confused for a while, before stumbling off towards the ravine. Alma watched it go, not once having picked up her bow. She watched as would an angel her children, a shepherd his flock, a mother ger her child. The kindred between man was inescapable, even if said man was dead and hungering for your flesh. Over the past few months (months?) Alma had fallen from a determined and serious young-woman, squishy and out of breath and yet so damned determined to kill every last one of those living corpses, to a lost soul, trapped in the confines of her insanity and loyal only to the trees that held her higher than harm. _How long had she been here? How long had she been cowering in her glorified fort, waiting for some miracle to come alone?_

After clothing herself in her leggings and tank, followed by the duct tape lined hoodie, she climbed from her tree, slipped into her tall boots, and slid her quiver over her slopped shoulder. No walker was in sight. The woods seemed so clear, seemed so calm. It was more like a pre-apocalypse hike than a post-apocalypse hunt. For hours she nimbly sprinted about, shooting small critters through with her skillfully crafted arrows. She found herself so lost in the monotonous chore that she welcomed a small herd of walkers, reveled in how frustrated they became when she perched in a tall tree and shot them down. Once they fell, she'd leap down and retrieve her arrows, retrieve anything shiny she encountered on their corpses, and move on. The leaves beneath her chattered endlessly as she passed them by, and sighed loudly when touch by an arrow from her swift bow. She reminded herself of a sprite. An elf. _Like Legolas. Kick-ass. _

She smiled as she recalled her favorite character from her favorite story, Lord of the Rings. Instead of long blonde hair she had long golden curls, usually tied up into a bun atop her head. Instead of long thin legs, hers were short and muscular, and led up to the large, round ass she had sported since she was a teen. Her lean stomach was shaped as an hourglass, but stubbornly wouldn't give way to abs. It was always mildly soft to the touch. Instead of pecs, she sported a coupled of squishy boobs. Instead of what she imagined was probably a wonderful dick, she had a hairy ol' vagina. Then only thing she could relate was her alabaster skin-every day, she dutifully slathered her body in scavenged sunscreen. Cancer was not something she could handle without the presence of modern medicine. She only thanked her lucky stars that she had her eye surgery before trying to manage her shitty potato vision in the middle of a global melt down. Green as they were, they were not as fresh as fields of dewy grass. The used to see as well as an ass could pee.

The sun was centered in the sky when she finally circled back to her tree. The lip of the ravine quivered just a few feet from her, and her canteen was hollow at her bony hip, the two hard edges arguing madly when she walked. She looked up at the plane, and scurried up only to place her daily treasures before leaping down and walking to the ravine's edge that so seductively enticed her, its watery murmur thick on her parched tongue.

As she skipped cautiously down the steep and loose slope, she noticed something wasn't right. To her right, a heavy trail of dirt and leaves seemed to have avalanched downward, yet it was scattered as if attempted from another angle. Blood was still slick on a scrawny tree near the disturbance, and she grabbed a hold of some branches to get a better look at the gore and path of distress. When she got closer, she heard a sharp sound of a body on leaves, and a deep groan. Instinctively she lifted herself up into the low hanging branches so that she was raised from the ground. She craned her neck to look further down the ravine, maneuvering like a lemur to get a better view. She really didn't know what to make of what she saw.

A rough-and-tumble cowboy looking type, grizzled and bloodied and sopping wet, was pulling himself steadily up the slope by roots and solidified soil. There was a blank and unseeing glare in his dark, squinted eyes that sent a chill down Alma's spine. He was definitely not a walker. There was something too sentient about him, too feral. Even the dead were more laid back than he. Sweat peeped on his brow, wrangled in what looked like pain, and his lips were tightened and white over his teeth. She considered for a moment leaving her guard to help the poor man, but the blood pouring from his side was something that kept her wary. If he was bit, than he was too dangerous for her. He could turn at any minute and snap her hand off before she could say "Sorry". She wasn't about to risk that for some reason. She had a new sense of self-preservation as she watched the man steadily drag his body up the steep incline. If anything, she was jealous that she lacked the upper-body strength to pull something like this off. Then she saw it.

As the man passed beneath her, unaware of her presence, she saw a crossbow, bulky unlike hers of swift wind and grace, strapped to his back. Immediately, a sense of kindred much like she felt towards the dead swelled within her. She saw blood in his hair and around his mouth when he came into view, and saw by a flash of skin, a puncture wound rather than a festering bite on his left side torso, poorly wrapped up by a strip of cloth. Just as he made it past her, she leapt down. He had just reached the lip of the ravine, just reached flat ground, when he heard two feet land in unison on the ground. He tried to whip around quickly, tried to lift off his back to get a better view of the feet's owner, but a dizzy fog kept his head glued to the earth and eyelids fluttering heavily.

"M-Merle…" He moaned quietly as a familiar face appeared above him.

Alma sighed, watching over where he fumbled pitifully in the dirt, batting his weak hands in the air over his face. "Merle," she repeated. "What a sorry, redneck name."

As she watched over him, eyes regarding him with a gaze of serenity, she felt something close to compassion, a feeling she had somewhat forgotten in these end of days. The longer she simply watched, the further from consciousness he slipped. She had already made up her mind.

Lifting with her legs, she hauled the man half over her shoulders. He was easily a few heads taller than she, making climbing up the tree exceedingly difficult. However, she managed to shove him like a china plate to a high shelf onto the plane where she slept. Before going up after him, she grabbed a canteen of water dangling from his belt and scurried with hers down to the water's edge. When she got there, she saw in the stiller part of the waters a reddened swath of blood, and lodged in the skull of a rotten corpse laying some ways off, was a single arrow. Without much thought to the scene before her, she filled the canteens with clean, moving water before scurrying back over to her tree. Upon returning, she realized her captive was bleeding out profusely and he had slipped into a deep trance-like unconsciousness.

"Okay Merle or whoever the hell you are, you listen good. I am **NOT** going to let you die. Not so you can haunt **MY** tree house and pin this on** ME**." she muttered to the groaning man. At her acerbic words, his eyelids fluttered, but she had already dampened a rag and placed it over his eyes. She got to work by removing his shirt and pants and makeshift bandage, as well as placing aside his weapon and bag. She was careful to keep the grimy belongings separate from her pristine ones. She then lifted his head on her thigh, now outstretched to support him, and brought the canteen to his lips. He was unresponsive.

Patting his sweaty, bloody cheeks, she said loudly, "Wake the fuck up dude. You're quitting on me. That's not fucking cool. If I don't get to quit neither do you. Drink water. Drink all of it for all I care." To punctuate her phrase, she slapped him hard across the face and brought her eyes down to his level. His had snapped open, bewildered. At first, he struggled against her touch, against her hold, but he then felt the cool water trickle into his mouth and he began to gratefully gulp it down. Alma even managed a crooked smile for her patient.

"You're gunna wanna pass back out for this part," she said kindly once the first canteen was empty. She was already using the water from the other to clean his deep wound. Whatever punctured him went straight through but had missed any organs. This was one lucky fucker. "The stuff I keep for disinfecting….let's just say it feels like the devil's pissing where it hurts the most." She smiled broad again, noticing he wasn't passing out anytime soon. She sighed and moved on. The bottle of alcohol was still relatively full from the last time she had to use it, and her good bandage was still clean. She first poured a few drops of alcohol onto a cloth, pressing them onto either side of the wound, cleaning the preliminary bacteria. The man in her lap had again begun to moan and complain at the acidic burn. _Poor fuck, _She thought as she picked up the bottle for the next step. She now poured the alcohol slowly into the wound, making sure it seeped thoroughly over the exposed area. As it seemed to sputter in his raw flesh, the man seemed more alive than ever. He bucked his body madly before realizing how much that hurt, and instead took to loudly cussing and batting at the arm that poured the alcohol. When he finally struck, the precious liquid leapt from the bottle, much of it wasted on the bark of the tree.

"Man, fuck trees," she grumbled as it seemed to absorb the alcohol. At the sound of her voice, the man seemed to still but for a moment to look now at her. Alma was already wrapping the bandage around his torso, tightening the cloth and sensing the blood being forced to run into his veins again. The pressure silenced him, like rocking will a crying baby. Once it was secure, she pulled back to look at him. His eyelids were heavy, but the color was slowly returning to his face-his worn, battered face. Every line told a story, held a memory.

"Sleep," Alma sighed, removing her leg and reaching for her own pillow to place beneath his head. He was one step ahead of her, eyes closing not in sleep but in unconscious delirium. She watched him for a moment before retrieving the animal bodies still uncooked from the other side of him, taking them down to the ground with her so she could make a fire and cook the meat.

As she cleaned the bodies and placed the good meat on a flat rock, she began to gently think to herself. She thought about the situation, the bloodied ravine, the crippled cowboy sleeping on her goddamn pillow. And yet only one word filled Alma's head.

_Shit. _


	3. 3- Honey-Bunch

Alma sat, hovered, silently in a few of the higher branches above the plane where the man still slept/lay unconscious. She had harshly reprimanded herself in the morning that she shouldn't have let herself slip into sleep when in such proximity to a stranger. And yet it really only occurred to her now how rash and dangerous her actions the previous day had been. She did not know the man, nor did she know what he was capable of. She felt even more tense than if a walker lay beside her as she slept. However, the compassion that shit-stormed her body was still lingering on, and she left a small pile of squirrel and rabbit tidbits by his gun, knives, and crossbow, all of which she laid out beside him before scrambling up into the branches to watch him like a fawn, doe-eyed and timid. When his eyes slipped open, her breath caught and she became naught but an extension of the solemn tree, completely undetectable even by the marvelous tracker, Daryl Dixon.

At first, he seemed confused, even angry, sitting bolt upright before cussing and lowering himself, settling with his elbow as a prop. He glanced around, then down, and for a moment his eyes flickered upward, causing Alma to hold her breath, but he seemed not to notice her there. As he took in his surroundings, she took in his figure, his aura. His breathing was steadier, and he wasn't drenched in sweat anymore. The bandage around his side was only slightly pink on the side where his wound was, but it seemed she had succeeded in stopping the bleeding. His hand probed the bandage, so white and clean compared to everything he owned. All of his dirt and gore encrusted clothing made Alma cringe as he slipped back into them. _Hell I can smell his balls from here. _At this she felt herself almost laugh but caught herself by clamping her teeth down hard on her bottom lip. The sting caused her to shit her weight, and the tree creaked slightly. Alma's eyes went wide, but the man seemed not to notice. He was violently rummaging through his belongings, checking that it all was there and seeming almost disappointed when it was. She could tell he liked picking fights.

"_Fuck_", he swore loudly when he looked it all over. He had a thick country twang, the kind she didn't hear much when she had lived in Houston.

She then noticed his eye lingering on her neat pile of belongings, her treasured possessions, her memorabilia. He reached over to begin pawing at the pile of things, the tightly rolled sleeping bag, but Alma, now feeling uncomfortable with his shift in attention to** her** things, cleared her throat.

She raised her slender dark brow in the time he grabbed his crossbow and had it aimed, yet unloaded, at where Alma crouched on a limb. He realized too soon that he was out of arrows, and opted for a gun, but by the time he had it pointed towards the strange woman, her bow was up, arrow drawn and tremoring slightly against her hand. A rueful smile played on her lips.

"Hey," Alma chuckled playfully, keeping her arrow drawn as she tiptoed along the branch, closer to the man who seethed like a cornered bull. The comparison she made was so accurate that yet another giggle bubbled to her lips before she could think about suppressing it. She noticed though that the man's hand lowered slightly, almost imperceptibly, when the rich tone left her lips. This made her feel eased, and in response, she let slack into the string, showing him she meant no harm.

"I made you breakfast. And saved your life. In case you were wondering." Alma said, now just a few steps from the plane. The man's eyes narrowed. "Youre name's Merle ri-"

"Merle? 'The hell you know that name, bitch?" he shouted, now raising the gun higher than before. Alma still kept her arrow down.

"You said it a few times. I didn't know if you were telling me or just plain saying shit. Sorry. Chill dude. You're gunna start bleeding again," Alma reinforced calmly, motioning to his side. His gun again lowered but he looked suspicious.

"The fuck are you?" he demanded gruffly, now inspecting the food, but ultimately turning it down. Before answering, Alma frowned at his response to her cooking.

"My name's Alma, and I'm your everyday guardian angel. Had it not been for me, your ass woulda died right there in that sorry patch of dirt. The walkers were especially hungry last night. They woulda loved if I'd have left you down there. Now please stop wasting my food and eat. You could really use it."

The man again shifted into a state of more trust, the gun lowering ever so slightly once more as he looked from the pile of meat back to Alma.

"I don' eat no food but my own. Don' go fuckin' patronizing me," he growled, but she was starting to realize his bark might be louder than his bite.

"Wasn't trying to. Now will you shoot me if I come down there with you?" she asked with a sigh of displeasure. _Good job, hero. You chose to save the single most whiny, ungrateful bitch in the whole goddamn forest. _

After a moment of pause, the man shook his head, simultaneously brushing some of the longer hair back and with it he lowered the gun. Alma noticed how he kept it in his hand, but said nothing as she lowered herself into the cramped space. He jumped like fucking cat when her leg brushed his. At this she was further annoyed, and his unblinking glower wasn't helping things. After retrieving her pillow she took a few pieces of meat and happily dropped them into her mouth, happy that she had figured out seasoning even after cooking had become something of a lost art. Daryl watched as she seemed o savor the flavor instead of wolf down the bites voraciously. Now that he thought about it, she was more in shape than a lot of people he saw. She wasn't rail thin like a walker herself, but full and well built. Her lips weren't thin and dry, but plump and pink. _Bet those ain't the only lips that look that fine…._

He suddenly remembered where he was, why he was where he was, and the thoughts left his head.

As Alma reached for more of the meat, a hand reached out and clamped down on her wrist, yanking it back from the food. Instead of lashing out and slapping the man for his actions, she eased uout of his grip, flashed him a glance of curiosity, before turning away and mutter, "Oh, **NOW **he's hungry. Fucking just as I'm starting to enjoy myself."

She almost mistaked the man's low growl of laughter for the sound of choking. It made her smile. She heard him chewing first slowly, then rapidly the meat she had prepared. She knew the sounds of satisfaction when she heard them.

"So now that you're eating my food, you gunna tell me who you are?" Alma began softly, not wanting to cause him to launch back into hostility. She sensed tension, but she knew the gun didn't leave the base of the plane.

"Mind your own fuckin' business bitch," the stranger snarled between bites, but Alma saw right through the bullshit defenses he had erected. The silence ensuing was simply because she didn't know from what weakness she could start.

"So Merle… you out here with him? Are ya'll working together to bring me down and rob me? Or did he leave you with an arrow wound to the side for walker-"

"Leave my broth-"

Daryl had said too much already, hating that the girl had made him snap. When he whipped around to raise a gun to her and give her a scare, she was out of sight. A chill ran down Daryl's spine, causing his eye to flinch as it slowly surveyed the surroundings. When she spoke again, he jumped. The voice came from behind him.

"It's not nice for brother's to leave eachother for dead. I have an older brother AND sister, and yet our arguments never got this heavy. Damn-"

"Fuckin' bitch!" Daryl growled, whirling on his heel to point his gun steadily at the woman in the branches. She sat cross-legged between two hefty perches, no weapon drawn nor even on her person. She meant no harm, and had saved his life. She knew the fuckin' sick game she was playing on him. And Daryl hated nothin' more than guilt. "You're fuckin' mad!"

"Aren't we all?" Alma smiled. She now took the tie that bound her hair up and removed it, letting glimmering coils bounce softly around her shoulders, fall between her breasts…a small smile, the same she held when she had her arrow pointed at his face, rested easily on her lips. "Was that horse yours? The one that woke me the hell up yesterday? Or did you steal from Hershel-"

"You know Hershel?" the man inquired, now without so much anger.

Alma nodded, recounting, "I got here a while ago on my way north-Texas to New York. I was about to call t quits when Hershel spotted me on his lands. He wasn't keen to taking me, and I sure as hell didn't want commitment to people, so we exchanged for an afternoon. He gave me some water, some food, some hope, and I promised in return to keep any walkers from wandering onto his land. I've been out here a while though."

"You seen a lil' girl?" the man suddenly blurted, visibly cringing the moment the words burst bloodily from between his now clenched lips. Daryl thought darkly to himself how he could never forgive allowing his guard to fall. He realized just how much he was risking everything right now…and all cause this bitch knew how to get under his skin.

"Nah…" Alma replied solemnly, suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. She saw the wrench of hurt in his features at the mention of her. She understood now why he was out here in the first place. She began to piece it all together herself without another word from the stranger.

"Here's what I got," Alma began. "You can fill in any missing gaps, kay? So you're out here on a hopefully borrowed horse from Hershel, and you're searching for a little girl. Your brother Merle doesn't have anything to do with this, and you sure as hell feel threatened by me." After a moments rest, she delicately continued. "You don't have to be. I'm not a threat to you or that little girl. I wish I could tell you I know where she is but hell I haven't seen a trace of a child out here….She yours?" She asked softly, now edging closer to him again. She saw his walks trembling and knew when to strike to bring them down…

"No. She's of a good friend of mine… And I'm with Hershel. He knows me. Don' go thinkin' you gotta go fuckin' tellin' on me and shit. I tol' you more'n you should know. Fuck, man. Why don't you just fuckin' mind your own?!" She noticed as he began to solidify again, returning to the hard-edge rebel as before, and not the feeling human being she ultimately preferred. She braced herself, and stopped moving forward. "Fuckin' tryna butter me up with food n' shit..Well it ain't gunna fuckin' work. I'm just gunna fuckin' kill you now bit-"

"Stop it!" she interrupted, eyes wide, but not desperate. They were annoyed. **She** was losing her patience with **him. **Daryl stopped mid-sentence, taken aback and unable to lift the gun.

"You really fuckin' think that the tree-lady that saved your quivering ass is going to exploit your information? What's it to me? I'm trying to be fuckin' nice dude. You know…courtesy. I make you breakfast, I don't fuck with your shit, I give you _my _fucki' pillow AND I save your life. And you think I'm _dangerous? _Sorry dude, but I thought you seemed a little less-"

"Shut your mouth, woman," he snapped, silencing her. She preferred the brooding anger he now had. She preferred that instead of being unreasonable he was submitting. He hated her for it though, and his eyes played every ounce of that emotion. His lips even twitched into a grimace as he glared long and hard at her. She let herself smile again, this time not a playful one, but a warm one.

"Wanna tell me your name, honey-bunch?"


End file.
